What's on their first Monday menu? The good folks from Milan (owners Guido Nistri and his wife Valentina) and chef Fabrizio Cavallini (who has done upscale cooking in Milan) have four risotto specials - mushroom; Milanese with sausage and saffron; seafood; and strawberry.

That last risotto is cooked with onions, chef Cavallini explained. “Really, it’s not sweet. It’s a natural taste.”

Mondays with the Milanese? Already the polished, glassy refuge is my first choice for a four-hour Sunday brunch.

Yesterday at Bencotto I felt like Sophia Loren at a banquet. I lingered on the patio with prosciutto stuffed into my gnocco fritto (the restaurant's signature fried-dough pockets). I was watered liberally with red sparkling Lambrusco. I leaned happily into the classic lamb-shoulder ragu over handmade, springy tagliatelle pasta. And gobbled up a Tuscan-style soup with wide pappardelle pasta and plump Borlotti beans.

That may sound like gluttony. That doesn’t even include the four other dishes and two desserts I also had. Now that’s eccessivo!

Glutton’s Trivia: Bencotto goes through 400 pounds of fresh pasta a week. And the tagliatelle pasta is made of spelt, an ancient grain.

A better-and-earlier deal: QS’s got a new Social Hour, where you get stellar house-made aspects of menu (a charcuterie plate; duck wings; burger and fries) for $6 each. The Gaslamp gastropub will meet its noble bar obligations during Social Hour, too, with $3 house wines, PBRs and pickleback shot specials. From 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

And pastry chef Jack Fisher has been making Nine-Ten’s signature Half-Baked Chocolate Cake there since the restaurant opened in 2001. It's probably impossible to tally the 10-years-worth of chocolate, eggs, sugar and flour Fisher’s woven together for that dessert.

"We have served up more than 50,000 (Half-Baked Chocolate Cakes),” Fisher was quoted in a press release. “That’s equal to 2,375 pounds of dark chocolate, 20,000 eggs, another 20,000 egg yolks, 1,250 pounds of sugar, and 172 pounds of flour.” Gulp.

You can add to the numbers: The dessert is part of Nine-Ten’s 10th Anniversary Market Menu offer. That's three courses, $45 per person, $60 with wine pairings, throughout July.

Did you hear Nine-Ten recently expanded its dinner menu to include Sundays and Mondays?

The restaurant's happy hour will be Wednesdays through Fridays between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. I can hardly wait to check out the inside of that bright, modern-looking restaurant. Its early-evening comfort plates include fare like a $5 Artichoke & Mozzarella Pizza or $8 Southwest Crab Cakes. The cafe is also a local beer advocate - there are wine and brew specials as low as $2.